1275
Events Europe War and politics *April 22 - The first of the Statutes of Westminster are passed by the English parliament, establishing a series of laws in its 51 clauses, including equal treatment of rich and poor, free and fair elections, and definition of bailable and non-bailable offenses. *Eleanor de Montfort is captured by pirates in the employ of Edward I of England to prevent her marriage to Llywelyn the Last, prince of Wales; she is used as a bargaining chip over the coming years in Edward's attempts to subjugate Llywelyn and Wales. *Scottish forces defeat the Manx of the Isle of Man in a decisive battle, firmly establishing Scottish rule of the island. *Third Mongol Golden Horde raid against Lithuania. Culture, religion, and science *Jean de Meun completes the French allegorical work of fiction, Roman de la Rose, with a second section; the first section was written by Guillaume de Lorris in 1230. *The verge escapement, a simple type of escapement used in clocks, is invented (exact year unknown). *Ramon Llull establishes a school in Majorca to teach Arabic to preachers in an attempt to aid proselytizing to Moors. He also discovers diethyl ether. * The first main survey of the Hundred Rolls, an English census seen as a follow up to the Domesday Book completed in 1086, is finished; it began in 1274. Asia *March - the 200,000 multiethnic troops of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty, headed by the Turkish commander Bayan, face a Chinese Song Dynasty army of 130,000 led by the Song Chancellor Jia Sidao. The result is a decisive victory for the Yuan Dynasty, and soon after the much-villified Jia Sidao is stripped of rank and title, and killed by one of his own guards as he is sent to exile in Fujian by the Song court. *Invading Mongol forces capture the Chinese city of Suzhou. *Marco Polo purportedly visits Xanadu, Kublai Khan's summer capital of the Mongol Empire. *The city of Kunming is made capital of the Yunnan province of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. * Nestorian monk Rabban Bar Sauma begin his pilgrimage from China towards Jerusalem *Chinese astronomers observe a total eclipse of the Sun in China on March 4. Eras and population estimates *The era of the tosafot, Medieval commentators on the Talmud, ends (began 1100). *The population of Bushmen in Basutoland (modern-day Lesotho) is estimated at 125,000. * The Japanese era Bun'ei ends, and the Kenji era begins. Births * September 27 - John II (died 1312) * William of Alnwick, Franciscan theologian (approximate date; died 1333) * Bartholomew de Badlesmere (died 1322) * Walter V of Brienne, Duke of Athens (approximate date; died 1311) * Edward Bruce, Scottish nobleman (approximate date; died 1318) * Dnyaneshwar, Hindu saint and poet (died 1296) * Gediminas (approximate date; died 1341) * Henry VII (approximate date; died 1313) * Mondino de Liuzzi, Italian physician and anatomist (died 1326) * John Menteith, Scottish nobleman (approximate date; died 1323) * Giovanni Villani, Florentine writer (approximate date; died 1348) * Giovanni d'Andrea, Italian jurist Deaths * April 13 - Eleanor of England (born 1215) * September 24 - Humphrey de Bohun, Constable of England (born 1208) * Bohemund VI of Antioch (born 1237) * Ferdinand de la Cerda, Crown Prince of Castile